"Unfunded pay-as-you-go state pension schemes are financially unsustainable in Europe as elsewhere. Proponents of reform argue that, by switching to a fully funded scheme that takes advantage of the high return on assets such as equities, the solvency of the state scheme could be restored at...

This paper develops a model of the housing market that takes account of population density to assess the impact of population changes on the value and size of the housing stock. The model implies that if population density is on an upward trajectory, rises in population and in incomes...

If low and stable inflation is maintained then the economic environment in the United Kingdom will be very different from any sustained period in the post-war era. This may have significant implications for financial markets: asset prices, the demand and supply for various types of financial...

This paper uses data on the stock market valuations of a large sample of UK companies to assess if that market displays short-termism. Tests are undertaken of whether discount rates, implicit in market valuations, applied to cash flows which accrue in the longer term are too high, both...

The European economic and monetary union (EMU) is now over 4 years old. In this paper we assess whether monetary union has begun to have significant economic effects by comparing countries in EMU with the EU countries outside. We focus principally on trade creation between EMU member countries,...

This paper reports estimates of the long-run costs and benefits of banks funding more of their assets with loss-absorbing capital, or equity. Measuring those costs requires careful consideration of a wide range of issues about how shifts in funding affect required rates of return and on how...

Contents Foreword - Frances Ruane Chapter 1: Monetary Policy and Financial Stability, David Miles Chapter 2: The Stability and Growth Pact: A Fiscal Framework Whose Time Has Come?, Jim O'Leary Chapter 3: Fiscal Policy: Some Lessons from Crises of the Past, Joe Durkan Chapter 4: Restructuring...